Since I was already fed up with tourist attractions I decided to work off some of the calories which had added up to a good 2 kg plus of body weight. A bike rental at the local bike shop would have cost me nice 40 bucks for the day, that’s why I asked at the hostel reception if the bikes in the backyards of the house are for rental. Apparently, there didn’t ask too many people before because I got a bike (after only 2 hours of waiting) for ridiculous 10 Dollars (per day!!! 🙂 ).
So, it just turned noon when I started my journey to Parc Gatineau with a short (but very important) stop at the petrol station to add some air into the tires. Unfortuntely, this was also the place where I lost the orientation, so I cruised a bit through the suburbs of Ottawa until I asked some very friendly man on the street and from then on it was almost easy (ok, I got lost a second time since the Canadians are very economical with their signs).
Only one hour from when I started I arrived at the parc entrance (I think the direct way would have been about 8 ks but never mind…) and got a very big and nice map with all the mountain bike tracks included – there were also the hiking tracks in but without the numbers which should cause a bit of a problem later.
So, I started and everything went quite well. The normal hiking paths here are like small autoroutes through the forest, very unusual to a European 🙂 at least you can’t get lost so easily, so after about 15 minutes of cycling I arrived at my first destination of the day: Lac des Fees and found myself in front of a grown up roe deer. Which was quite strange because we were just standing there and looking at each other. Of course I had to take picture and right after that the animal disappeared into the forest.
Unfortunately I didn’t see any kind of water, pond or lake which I would have guessed from the name (Lac) and had to cycle back the way since at the end I ended on a parking lot.
Back on the cycling path I continued further north in direction of the cool mountainbike trails but when I looked on the map the next time I had already passed them.
Which was a bit annoying since I would have expected that there would have been a sign or anything to mark the way to the trails….
Luckily, there seemed to be a quite interesting (because rated as most difficult) mountainbike path very close by.
So, I finished my very healthy lunch (nuts, apple and banana) and went to my very first mountainbike trail in Canada – which was of very short delight….when I realized that I started at the wrong end of the trial.
There had been some very nice downhills (which were then uphills for me) – a very sad situation… and very sweat-inducing as well….when I was up the last bit I was soaking wet and of course I was wearing my cotton clothes. Imagine that: I’m dragging my cycling clothes all through the country of Canada and then I go cycling with my cotton t-shirt….stupid, stupid, stupid,… so I tried to dry my t-shirt on a very nice look out and of course exactly in this moment there had to arrive another mountainbiker. So I put my t-shirt back on without drawing his attention, at least I hope so… and asked for the best way to get back without going too much uphill.
I returned to another parking lot (these are always the critical points since there are no signs) and finally I found a trail going in the right direction. Jippieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And at last I really had fun 🙂 Although my bike was not the newest model (as you can see on the picture above) and I was already reaaaaaaaaaaaally tired there was not problem to ride the first class trails. I don’t understand anyway how the Canadians rate their trails: some of the grade two trails are as steep as the higher rated ones and the grade 1 are fun but not thrill seeking or as steep as I would have expected.
So I guess that these trails are only for tourists and the locals have their own trails anyway. Maybe I find some of these later – when I have a adequate bike as well.
The way back was remarably short (only one hour or so) but due to me being in really bad shape at the moment I could have sleep instantly – which I didn’t since when I was hauling my tired body through the lobby I met Franziska, the Swiss girl I met in Montreal on my first day. So, we talked a bit but at around 11PM I finally had to call it a day 🙂
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